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beauty

Yesterday, the incredibly skilled Vanessa Corral, captured our annual family photographs for us. The entire time she was with us, I was in awe of her. While it’s obvious she has natural talent for her craft, I know she has relentlessly trained her eye and honed her skill.

She is determined to do her very best work, 100% of the time.

It’s not something she decided to try one day, and it just so happened that she discovered this incredible, pristine gift. Nope. I know her story. Her talent is a result of YEARS of hard work and experience. She’s photographed thousands of faces. She’s specifically worked with women, mothers, sisters, and families to capture emotion, confidence, and connection.

That connection is the hallmark of her art.

Whether it’s connection between her subjects, or simply one woman, finding her confidence in Vanessa’s lens, she conjures beautiful connection in her photographs, every single time. …

I love this picture for so many reasons. I have to start with the fact that this is from our last Girls Night Out, with a 70’s theme. Dress up is always optional, of course, and in this picture you can see some of the gamut of outfits. Our party girl Krystin (our new HeartStories Marketing Maven), is in her gold sequins disco dress in the background, matching shoes and all. Me, in my “Made in the 70’s” t-shirt with bell bottoms and flowers in my hair. And my beautiful friend Vanessa, our beloved HeartStories photographer, in her svelte 70’s glamour girl pantsuit, capturing all the fun. There were ladies in everything from their normal street attire, business casual, yoga pants and Dezi, who arrived decked out from head to toe in full disco gear.

This is, apparently, my cork board selfie. While we’ve been endlessly purging this home we’ve lived in for almost 15 years, the hardest things to let go of are the keepsakes. The creations of art made by the boys over all the years are like little one-of-a-kind treasures. Letting go of the stained glass, pottery, paintings and pictures of years gone by is emotionally difficult for the boys and me.

Clearing out the giant cork board in my office was no exception.

It was covered, top to bottom, with their handwork, so I asked the boys to do it. They each got a basket to stack their work neatly inside, with the promise that we’d take a photo of each piece. At first it was so hard, but then they started laughing and enjoying the process. I left them there to get it done while I moved on to another room.

I wanted to write a story about each of our Featured Guests for this Thursday’s GNO and realized that I don’t have a picture with Theresa. She had to scoot out of our little brunch get-together before I was able to grab a pic with her. I was so bummed and searched her Facebook for a fun picture to tell her story. I was instantly drawn to this beautiful image.

Then I read the story . . . and the tears fell.

Now I know why we didn’t get a picture together. You needed to hear this story in her words, not mine. I want you to meet Theresa, to get to know her story and her heart. I can tell you all the things I know and love about her, like her obvious wisdom, kindness, courage, resiliency, generosity, and her fierce belief in supporting other women. But I can’t even get …

This is such a treasured image for me because it represents so much of what I believe is true about women. This is my friend Leah Frazier. She’s a stunning fashion entrepreneur, who also happens to be a double-licensed attorney and own a media company. But you wouldn’t know any of that when you meet her. Oh you’ll know she’s smart, strong and wise, no doubt. But she has such a bright, kind, and generous spirit, it’s more likely you’ll think she’s you long-lost sister soul mate.

And that’s what makes this story so special.

One night in February, she showed up in my Facebook feed. Even through the screen of Facebook, she exuded such a bright, beautiful light. I stalked her for a minute, and quickly realized she was someone I would love to know. She is doing countless amazing things with her life, but her feed somehow seems like it’s …

Meeting these beautiful women for brunch at UP Inspired Kitchen on Friday was one of the most fun and exciting experiences I’ve had in a very long time. It was full of very open conversation, laughter, and maybe a few little tears. They are our treasured featured guests for the upcoming “Let’s Get Together” HeartStories GNO. (Meet them all here!) We met up to chat about the ways in which we all approach beauty differently and laugh about the hilarious beauty routines we each embrace.

But something different emerged, and it was even more beautiful.

We ended up talking our own individual evolutions of understanding of beauty. We shared stories from what we were told about beauty as little girls, to what we understand is beautiful no, as grown women (some with little girls and boys of our own). We shared how we talk about and represent beauty to our kids. We laughed …